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Factions involved in Ranked Warring set to see memberships locked down for duration of wars from February 1st. Find out how this may affect you and why it's been introduced
Tuesday’s Patch Notes contained an announcement that factions participating in the Ranked Warring feature will soon be subjected to a full roster lock for the period between a match being found and the cessation of said war.
Roster locks, which will be introduced from February 1st, mean that no members can join, leave, or be kicked from a faction until their current Ranked War is over - this will not apply during matchmaking, only when a match has been found. This change has been introduced in order to close a loophole that may have been exploited since Ranked Warring opened.
The loophole in question relates to the 72-hour recruit status applied to players when joining a faction. Recruit status means that said players cannot contribute to a Ranked War, but they can still be hit and lose respect for their side. If Recruit status didn’t exist, players could simply join a faction after a match has been made and take a full part in a Ranked War, allowing factions to increase or decrease in strength and/or numbers during the 36-59 hour wait period.
However, if a player was to join a faction immediately after a Ranked War had been arranged, they can contribute to the war’s outcome by waiting for their recruit status to end. If, for example, the maximum wait period of 59 hours was in place, this means that any war lasting greater than 13 hours could be influenced by the efforts of Recruits - the maximum possible duration of a ranked war is 123 hours. We anticipated that some players might make use of this loophole, but we realised that it would not be worth doing in 99% of cases. Nevertheless, the introduction of a roster lock will prevent such a situation entirely.
We have also heard rumours that some factions are using faction membership loopholes to their advantage in other ways. For example, some players have been reportedly seen loaning themselves to small factions to help them gain an easy win. Others have been spotted leaving factions during wars to drop the number of available targets for their opponent. Furthermore, we’ve heard of factions temporarily stacking themselves with low-stat players to bring down their average in order to match with weaker opponents, before kicking their low-stat members after the match has been made.
For these reasons and others, the roster lock was deemed a necessary addition in order to make Ranked Warring fairer for all. One major benefit of the roster lock is that it removes the need for the forfeit outcome generated when a faction’s strength drops by 20% after a match has been made. Several other options were considered and discussed by the committee, but in the end, the roster lock was deemed the cleanest solution to this issue.
Concerns were aired regarding factions’ ability to kick scammers and spies during the Committee’s discussion on this topic, but since these situations are both rare and technically within the rules, it was decided to press on with the roster lock. In the case of a vault thief, player roles can still be changed under a locked roster, allowing you to remove banker status. And if someone is trolling to an extreme extent, staff are still able to intervene in such situations as usual.
Another concern raised was the risk posed by a locked roster to low respect factions. Some committee members pointed out that low respect factions could be raided out of existence now that they no longer have the ability to kick players out of the faction. It was decided that the ability to save one’s faction by booting players was an unintended mechanic, and since players can easily reduce their impact upon their own faction by self-hosping or flying, the concerns over faction destruction were not serious enough to dismiss the introduction of the roster lock.
Tl;dr: Players involved in ranked warring cannot join, leave, or be kicked from a faction between a match being made and the war’s end. This will apply from February 1st, 2022.
Roster locks, which will be introduced from February 1st, mean that no members can join, leave, or be kicked from a faction until their current Ranked War is over - this will not apply during matchmaking, only when a match has been found. This change has been introduced in order to close a loophole that may have been exploited since Ranked Warring opened.
The loophole in question relates to the 72-hour recruit status applied to players when joining a faction. Recruit status means that said players cannot contribute to a Ranked War, but they can still be hit and lose respect for their side. If Recruit status didn’t exist, players could simply join a faction after a match has been made and take a full part in a Ranked War, allowing factions to increase or decrease in strength and/or numbers during the 36-59 hour wait period.
However, if a player was to join a faction immediately after a Ranked War had been arranged, they can contribute to the war’s outcome by waiting for their recruit status to end. If, for example, the maximum wait period of 59 hours was in place, this means that any war lasting greater than 13 hours could be influenced by the efforts of Recruits - the maximum possible duration of a ranked war is 123 hours. We anticipated that some players might make use of this loophole, but we realised that it would not be worth doing in 99% of cases. Nevertheless, the introduction of a roster lock will prevent such a situation entirely.
We have also heard rumours that some factions are using faction membership loopholes to their advantage in other ways. For example, some players have been reportedly seen loaning themselves to small factions to help them gain an easy win. Others have been spotted leaving factions during wars to drop the number of available targets for their opponent. Furthermore, we’ve heard of factions temporarily stacking themselves with low-stat players to bring down their average in order to match with weaker opponents, before kicking their low-stat members after the match has been made.
For these reasons and others, the roster lock was deemed a necessary addition in order to make Ranked Warring fairer for all. One major benefit of the roster lock is that it removes the need for the forfeit outcome generated when a faction’s strength drops by 20% after a match has been made. Several other options were considered and discussed by the committee, but in the end, the roster lock was deemed the cleanest solution to this issue.
Concerns were aired regarding factions’ ability to kick scammers and spies during the Committee’s discussion on this topic, but since these situations are both rare and technically within the rules, it was decided to press on with the roster lock. In the case of a vault thief, player roles can still be changed under a locked roster, allowing you to remove banker status. And if someone is trolling to an extreme extent, staff are still able to intervene in such situations as usual.
Another concern raised was the risk posed by a locked roster to low respect factions. Some committee members pointed out that low respect factions could be raided out of existence now that they no longer have the ability to kick players out of the faction. It was decided that the ability to save one’s faction by booting players was an unintended mechanic, and since players can easily reduce their impact upon their own faction by self-hosping or flying, the concerns over faction destruction were not serious enough to dismiss the introduction of the roster lock.
Tl;dr: Players involved in ranked warring cannot join, leave, or be kicked from a faction between a match being made and the war’s end. This will apply from February 1st, 2022.
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